As the Mist Resembles the Rain
by Trispin Javert
Summary: "My eyes found his face, and it chilled me to the bone. It bespoke of pain, of anguish, of crushing grief. His knees were pulled up to his chest and his one arm rested against them, its hand fisted in his hair. The other hand held a hologram." Another point of view of Anakin set during Obi-Wan's death in the Deception arc.


I still don't know what woke me up that night.

The nights on Coruscant don't fade into silvery silence as they do on other planets. If anything, they become louder, more delirious, a frenzy of sizzling neon and vice. It's a conglomeration of beings, a melting pot of cultures, a mix from the most wealthy to the most destitute.

It was raining. I remember that. The tattered jacket I used as a blanket did nothing to keep the moisture off my skin. It hardly ever rained on Coruscant. The perfectly modulated atmospheric controllers saw to that. But every now and then they allowed the clouds to gather and the water to fall, as if in an attempt to wash away the dirt and filth hiding in the lower levels.

I crawled out from under my covering, wiping a dirty hand across my face. The street around me was littered with trash and Force-knows-what-else, but I had become accustomed to the smell. It was so easy to get lost on this planet, to become as unknown and unnoticed as the falling drops of rain.

If nothing else, I was a survivor. I had been down here . . . I can't even remember how long. I was a reject, just like all the others who found themselves on the lower levels. We all had to make compromises while down here. Some lived through violence, others by their wits. But I survived.

Suddenly, a voice reached my ears. I froze. I was a survivor, yes, but I survived on these streets by hiding, stealing what I needed, and never _never_ looking for trouble.

The voice reached me again. It was pitched low, the words too far away for me to make out. It sounded tinny, as if it was a recording of some kind.

It drew me in. For some inexplicable reason, I felt an urge to follow it. Heart in my throat, I slowly crept down the darkened ally and peaked around the corner.

I will never forget what I saw.

The person sitting at the end of the alley at first glance didn't seem to belong down here. His clothes were too new, his longish dark blond hair still showed the crisp ends cut by a sharp razor.

But a longer glance told a different story. His clothes were wrinkled and dirty, his hair greasy and disheveled.

My eyes found his face, and it chilled me to the bone. It bespoke of pain, of anguish, of crushing grief. I had never seen a person so broken, so shattered as this man before me. His knees were pulled up to his chest and his one arm rested against them, its hand fisted in his hair.

The other hand held a hologram.

The blue light flickered eerily in the rain, causing the tracing of raindrops to stand out in sharp relief as they slid down the figure's face.

The hologram began to speak.

 _"_ _Blast it, Anakin. Don't you ever have your commlink on? What have I told you about that?"_ The figure in the hologram muttered something intelligible before sighing and shaking his head. _"The council has called an emergency meeting. I'm tracing your location now, I'm coming to you."_

The blue light winked out momentarily. I felt my stomach drop. The incongruous recording should not initiate such a devastated response from the young man before me. What had happened? What had caused him to...

The light flickered again.

 _"_ _Blast it, Anakin. Don't you ever have your commlink on? What have I told you about that? The council has called an emergency meeting. I'm tracing your location now, I'm coming to you."_

The blue light shut off again.

The blood pounded through my veins. I felt like an intruder on the little scene, but I also couldn't look away.

Blue flickering light.

 _"_ _Blast it, Anakin. Don't you ever have your commlink on? What have I told you about that? The council has called an emergency meeting. I'm tracing your location now, I'm coming to you."_

Flicker off. Flicker on. Rain. _I'm coming to you._

Off. On. Rain. _I'm coming to you._

The figure before me groaned, clenching his eyes shut. It was a haunting sound, and it seemed to penetrate deep into my soul. His hand fisted tighter around the hologram as his breath came in shallow gasps.

"Why?" The word seemed torn from his throat, his voice cracking as if unused for many days. His thumb shifted, pausing the hologram. The small figure froze, one hand on his hip, the other slightly raised in the middle of a gesture.

"Why?" The voice came again, this time so small, so broken, confusion and pain coloring the words like a dark bruise.

The gloved hand untangled from his hair and reached forward with trembling fingers. His fingertips brushed the face in the hologram, setting off distortion ripples in the image.

"It shouldn't have _happened,_ Master…I should have been faster, better. I….I should have been _there_ when you...you... _"_ The voice cracked and his features began to crumple, but the man kept his gaze locked on the frozen blue face in front of him.

 _"_ They're already saying I should _let go_ , that I should _move on_." The eyes took on a hard edge, glinting in the neon rain. I felt a shiver of fear run down my spine and unconsciously slid deeper into my hiding place.

The man moved the recording closer to his face, the deep lines around his eyes and mouth carved even deeper by the flickering shadows. His eyes seemed to bore a hole into the image, as though he was memorizing every little detail. His mouth pulled back, showing teeth. His voice cut through the city sounds like a knife as he hissed, _"Never."_

The trembling fingers brushed through the image again as the man's mouth twisted and his eyes blinked rapidly. His shoulders sagged, his thumb and forefinger pressing against his eyelids. His voice dropped, quavering, broken, swallowed by the rain. "Never."

The thumb moved again and the recording flickered back to life.

 _"_ _...told you about that? The council has called an emergency meeting. I'm tracing your location now, I'm coming to you."_

Flicker off. Flicker on. Rain. _I'm coming to you._

Off. On. Rain. _I'm coming to you._

I slowly backed away, feeling guilty and ashamed. This was not meant for other eyes to see. But the image was burned into my mind. The weeping rain, the flickering lights, the figure clutching the hologram like it was his lifeline.

And sometimes, after the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire, I wondered what happened to that young Jedi with the rainstained face and the broken heart. Did he survive the purge? Had he escaped? Was he now in hiding? Part of me hoped he had. Hoped that somewhere he was safe. That somewhere he had begun a new life.

But the smallest, darkest part of me hoped that he hadn't. Hoped that his death had been painless. Hoped that in his final rest, he had found his friend in the flicking blue hologram.


End file.
